Gary Brown: Your garden-variety politics

Tuesday

Oct 30, 2007 at 12:01 AMOct 30, 2007 at 2:07 AM

This is the season when colorful gardens of political signs sprout. Planted by partisan sign gardeners and watered down with political rhetoric, clusters of the signs -- like flowers in lawns -- bloom at the beginning of the campaign season and don’t die off until the chill -- at least for half the gardeners -- is felt after the autumn election.

Gary Brown

This is the season when colorful gardens of political signs sprout. Planted by partisan sign gardeners and watered down with political rhetoric, clusters of the signs -- like flowers in lawns -- bloom at the beginning of the campaign season and don’t die off until the chill -- at least for half the gardeners -- is felt after the autumn election.

Their blossoms are vibrant. Red. Blue. White. Some signs flower patriotically in all three colors.

A few signs seek to stand out. They are huge and boastful. Bright yellow and orange signs try to draw the eye. But, at the speed of a passing car, can a motorist’s eye distinguish one candidate’s yellow or orange sign from another candidate’s yellow or orange sign, any more than it can focus on a single sunflower or a sole lily in a field of them?

Political signs rarely grow alone. Oh, a sign for a school levy might grow by itself in the grass in front of an educational institution -- a stretch of green where candidate’s signs are not welcome. A single sign for some candidate may be planted in a resident’s yard, the seed for it put there by a gardener who had married into the candidate’s family.

But usually political signs grow in beds that seem to spread overnight. Plant a candidate’s sign one afternoon and surely the next day signs for an opponent will spring forth nearby, sometimes nearly surrounding the original species, like weeds trying to choke out a petunia.

It’s too bad sign-gardening custom doesn’t allow you to cultivate.

Garden spots

There are good places for sign gardens, just as there are good places for flower gardens. You plant posies in front of your porch in a way in which people passing can see them. Sign gardeners also seek traffic.

Corners are appreciated. The sides of busy roads are popular planting places. This time of year you can’t turn from one well-traveled road to another without being ushered by a ballot box full of candidate signs.

And the most politically motivated among us no doubt think that the abundantly placed signs -- continuing on down the road along the berm -- is almost a highway beautification project. It’s kind of like Karl Rove meets Lady Bird Johnson.

Voicing opposition

Not everyone smiles and nods and compliments -- says “Well planted!” -- at the sight of a political garden, of course. You rarely see these people wandering through gardens of signs, pointing out signs they recognize.

“I think they call these trustees ... .” And, to be honest about it, not all sign gardeners have the green thumb – or red, white and blue pointer finger, for that matter -- they thought they did when they planted their signs.

Watch the gardeners when the voting is done Nov. 6. They won’t all be happy. The flowers they pick the next day won’t all seem like bouquets to them. Many of them will pluck their signs, look sadly at the handful of them, shrug, and realize, “Well, that certainly wasn’t as beautiful as we thought ... maybe next year I’ll plant a different party.”